99designs Pushes Hard Into Asia with Launch of New Singapore Site, Regional Design Community Tour and Hiring of Local Staff

99designs Pushes Hard Into Asia with Launch of New Singapore Site, Regional Design Community Tour and Hiring of Local Staff

San Francisco

3 Jun 2013

SAN FRANCISCO – June 4, 2013 – 99designs,
the world’s largest graphic design marketplace, today announced it is accelerating its expansion
in Asia with the launch of a new site for the Singapore market, an extensive tour of its large and
active designer communities in Indonesia and the Philippines, and the hiring of regional design
consultants to better serve the needs of customers throughout Asia.

“Word-of-mouth adoption of 99designs’ design contest model in Asia has been amazing since we
launched 99designs five years ago, and we are now ready to more formally invest in accelerating
our growth there,” said Patrick Llewellynn, president and CEO of 99designs. “Our customer bases in
regional startup hubs like Singapore and Hong Kong have grown at a remarkable pace, and some of our
largest and most successful design communities are in Indonesia and the Philippines.”

Launch of 99designs.com.sg
Jason Sew Hoy, Chief Operating Officer and Asia-Pacific General Manager of 99designs,
is in Singapore this week to celebrate the launch of 99designs.com.sg with local customers
and designers, as well as to speak at CrowdsourcingWeek,
Echelon and Startup Grind Singapore.
The new site enables Singapore customers to purchase design work on 99designs using local currency
and access support through a local phone number. Singapore is one of 99designs’ top markets, with
one of its highest sales per capita. 99designs.com.sg is 99designs’ second country site in Asia;
last year the company launched a successful local-currency site for the Hong Kong market at 99designs.hk.

Design Community Tour
99designs Community Director Jason Aiken and a team of designer community liaisons have begun
a two-week tour of Indonesia and the Philippines, where they will host numerous design events
reaching thousands of designers, including a full-day National Conference for Indonesian designers
in Yogyakarta on June 7.

Indonesia and the Philippines are among 99designs’ top designer markets,
with thousands of designers in those regions earning a living by winning design contests on 99designs
and carrying out follow-on work for clients they meet on the site. 99designs has paid out more than $10 million
USD to graphic designers in Indonesia and the Philippines alone since its launch in 2008 – more than any
other design marketplace has paid out to their entire global design community. In total, 99designs has paid
out $54 million USD to its designer community of more than 444,306 designers from 192 countries.

“The request for 99designs to visit Indonesia and the Philippines came directly from our designers,
dozens of whom have worked with us to plan a full calendar of events,” said Aiken. “Our designers
in these countries are incredibly proactive, and have already organized many meetups on their own
to form social and professional networks. We couldn’t be more excited and delighted to meet them
in person to provide support and education.”

Hiring of Regional Staff
To help support its rapid growth in the region, 99designs has hired a staff of three design
consultants based in The Philippines. These support staff will help ensure 24/7 customer support
for the Asia-Pacific markets and will be available to help customers write design briefs and facilitate their contests.

“We’re working closely with our new staff in the Philippines and will continually evaluate
the need for additional staff in other countries,” said Sew Hoy. “We’ve learned a lot about
how best to approach internationalization over the past year in the course of launching nine
new sites across Europe and Latin America, and we’re looking forward to applying those learnings
as we focus on building our presence throughout the Asia-Pacific region.”

About 99designs99designs is the
world's largest online graphic design marketplace,
connecting businesses looking for design work with more
than 220,000 graphic designers from 192 countries around
the world. Businesses can source graphic design work
quickly and affordably
by launching
design contests to the
community, working
1-on-1 with individual designers, or purchasing
design templates from 99designs' readymade logo
store. The company was co-founded by serial
entrepreneurs Mark Harbottle and Matt Mickiewicz
(SitePoint, Flippa), and is backed by Accel Partners and
angel investors Michael Dearing (eBay, Harrison Metal),
Dave Goldberg (Survey Monkey), Stewart Butterfield
(Flickr, Tiny Speck) and Anthony Casalena
(Squarespace). To learn more about 99designs, including
where the company is hiring, visit
99designs.com.